Conversations with Bird and Byron

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bird and Byron. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Nick (Byron) and Blake (Bird) initially met as kids in Columbus, Ohio. They played on the same baseball teams, had classes together, and hung out outside of school. Their music-making partnership didn’t start taking shape til’ after college.

Nick graduated from Belmont University in 2019 with a focus on songwriting, and Blake left college in 2018 to pursue a music career. Blake was working at a coffee shop near Nick’s house when one day, Nick’s mom Stephanie walked in and ployed Blake to come over and jam with Nick. Shortly after that, they wrote their first song and haven’t stopped since.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being a part of the music industry is like riding a rollercoaster that is on fire every 2-months. But, the smooth-riding days outweigh the bumpy days. We released our first single on March 14th, 2020, which was the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns. COVID was our first real challenge as a band. We had just begun our careers in LA and we were ready to take the city by storm. But during the lockdown, we moved back home to Columbus. Blake had lost his job and Nick had moved to an entirely remote position, so there was no point in paying the skyrocketing LA rent.

Our dreams of being LA’s new soul-rock phenoms were cut short, so we had to rethink our timeline. During those trying days in the winter of 2020, we formed our weekly One Take Tuesday series, which is live covers and original music shot and released every Tuesday as a video on TikTok and Instagram. This immediately brought us success, with a handful of viral moments in the 137+ One Take Tuesdays we’ve posted. A challenge was presented to us, and we had to figure out how to come out on top of it. We continue to try and do that as we grow in this industry.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We are a soul-rock duo based out of Nashville. We specialize in groovy music that harks on vulnerability, emotional intelligence, true love, heartbreak, and triumph. We are known for our original music as well as our cover songs. Our original tune “By My Side” is inching towards 3.5 million streams on Spotify and landed us a placement in the Netflix series ‘Lincoln Lawyer’. The song has gotten radio play from LA to Oslo. Our cover song “Where’d All the Time Go?” by Dr. Dog earned us countless loyal fans who come to see us city to city on tour just to hear the song.

We are most proud of our early commitment to keep the music between ourselves. All recent releases were written, performed, mixed, and mastered at our home in Nashville, TN. We have retained full creative control and rights of these tunes (other than the covers), and that has been not only good for our output but also for our wallets. Our experience has been completely grassroots since we began, and now that we have more industry folks vying for our attention, we are excited to up the ante.

We also are a sought-after live band. We recently toured with Durand Jones, who is known for his soul work with the Indications. We had such a good time with him on the road, and we got to play in cities we would have never even dreamt up back in those strange days in 2020.

At the end of the tour, Durand Jones triumphantly announced to the crowd that they should keep an eye on us because we’re the next big thing in Nashville. That was a proud moment for both of us; To hear support like that from a fellow professional is grounding and inspiring.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is getting the opportunity to do what you love every day and being happy doing it.

If you’re lucky, you get to do what you love, AND it supports you and your family. This business is based on metrics and social media fame, but as long we get to do what we love, we’ll be happy, and happiness = success.

Pricing:

• We have a Patreon where we upload our fully fleshed-out One Take Tuesday among other things, and that is a $5 monthly subscription.

Contact Info:

• Website: birdandbyron.com
• Instagram: @birdandbyron
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birdandbyron/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8BDY32Xan60FN1e6rhspvw
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bird-and-byron
• Other: https://patreon.com/BirdandByron?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Image Credits
Lydia Sprecher @sprechlyd, Crystal Silva @crystal.silva, and Kane Stewart @citizenkanewayne